The global distribution of known and undiscovered ant biodiversity

Invertebrates constitute the majority of animal species and are critical for ecosystem functioning and services. Nonetheless, global invertebrate biodiversity patterns and their congruences with vertebrates remain largely unknown. We resolve the first high-resolution (~20-km) global diversity map for a major invertebrate clade, ants, using biodiversity informatics, range modeling, and machine learning to synthesize existing knowledge and predict the distribution of undiscovered diversity. We find that ants and different vertebrate groups have distinct features in their patterns of richness and rarity, underscoring the need to consider a diversity of taxa in conservation. However, despite their phylogenetic and physiological divergence, ant distributions are not highly anomalous relative to variation among vertebrate clades. Furthermore, our models predict rarity centers largely overlap (78%), suggesting that general forces shape endemism patterns across taxa. This raises confidence that...

无脊椎动物（invertebrates）构成了动物物种的绝大多数，对生态系统功能与服务至关重要。然而，全球无脊椎动物的生物多样性分布格局，及其与脊椎动物的分布一致性，目前仍在很大程度上尚不明确。本研究借助生物多样性信息学（biodiversity informatics）、分布建模（range modeling）与机器学习（machine learning）手段，整合现有研究成果并预测尚未被发现的多样性分布，首次绘制了主要无脊椎动物演化支（clade）——蚂蚁（ants）的高分辨率（~20公里）全球多样性分布图。研究发现，蚂蚁与不同脊椎动物类群在丰富度与稀有性格局上具有截然不同的特征，这凸显了在生物保护中纳入多类群多样性考量的必要性。尽管蚂蚁在系统发育与生理特征上与脊椎动物存在显著分化，但相较于脊椎动物演化支的分布变异范围，其分布格局并未呈现高度异常。此外，我们的模型预测，不同类群的稀有性中心整体重叠比例达78%，这表明通用的生态过程塑造了各类群的特有性分布格局。这一发现增强了我们对……的信心。